Website crashes shouldn't surprise us, but there was something different about last year's Amazon EC2 problems and similar service interruptions with Microsoft Office 365 and Akamai. The impact seemed more widespread. More websites were affected, either knocked out entirely or had critical functions damaged or missing.

There's a reason for this and it's changing how every CIO or CTO manages their Internet properties. In short, the direct control you previously had over a website or Web application is now gone, replaced with an increased dependence on outside components or other external factors. Welcome to the Web's Age of Interdependence.

You once hosted a site and its applications on your own infrastructure, all under a single domain and all under your direct control. Today’s Web businesses are typically comprised of several outside sources. These third-party components come from multiple domains and are assembled by the user’s browser. They include content or services such as ads, video, shopping carts, news feeds, web analytics, or content delivery networks.

Just one poorly performing service can cause an entire application to slow or shut down entirely. This is problematic if that service provides needed content, and costly if a revenue-producing function goes down.

Our data shows the average U.S. website now has more than eight domains (some as many as a dozen) contributing to a single user transaction, many outside of your direct control. One of the Web's greatest assets - the flexibility to mashup a website using specialized content from many sources - has also become a liability as websites affected by this year's outages discovered.

When you add the converging trends of mobile, cloud computing, users with multiple devices and customers' insatiable need for speed and reliability, the challenges of providing a stellar web experience are getting more complex.

The inevitable conclusion: in order to address present and future IT challenges, Web businesses must acknowledge their increasing interdependence on the Internet itself, and constantly monitor, evaluate and optimize every element between the data center and the end user.

There is a complex set of services standing between you and your customers, starting from within your data center or service provider and out to the end user’s screen. We call it the Application Delivery Chain. Problems can occur at any point along this chain, and can result in slow or failed transactions, load times that vary widely across geographies, or pages that don’t work or display properly - all of which weaken revenue and dilute your brand.